Catching Up With Cities XL

CitiesXL is expected to bring some new life to city simulation games. The game isn’t expected to release until 2009. In the meantime, the team at Monte Cristo has given an inside look at the game development process. There’s been a few new announcements since the game’s name has been changed from Cities Unlimited.

The MMO Aspect

Cities XL introduces an online component called “Planet Offer”. Players will be able to interconnect with other cities and influence various aspects between them. Mayors can share economic resources by trading with others.  Citizens can travel back and forth between other cities and experience venues and other major events. Players will also be able to walk through different cities and experience the game through a person’s eyes.

This online component has brought up a new issue we’ve never seen before in city building games, an online fee. The details of the pricing plan has not been decided yet, and many fans have decided $10 a month would be good, or perhaps a one time fee might be a more practical solution.

Zoning And Transportation

In regards to zoning, Monte Cristo built a mass placement tool that automatically sets each zone around the roads. Since there is no grid format for zone placement,  the zones would be automatically configure to fit within its confines.  A blog posting on CitiesXL site shows a rough concept on what the zoning tool may look like. Zone placement was certainly faster than Simcity4, but it felt that we did not have total control over where roads are going. I do stress that this zoning tool was only a concept, and I’m sure they will make it more intuitive once the game officially releases.

As for transportation, only roads were shown so far. The only features they did show off were multiple types of roads with 2 lanes or 4 lanes. Roads can be curved and the zones will attach itself to it. In the screenshot above you can see that diagonal roads have zones in front of them.  They do plan to showcase more methods of transportation before the end of this year.

Cities XL is expected to be released in 2009. It will be for the MAC and PC, and will have an unannounced online fee for the online component.

[via citiesxl.com]